Comments on: So what is a person to do when another wishes to make them ‘do the right thing’ at gunpoint?https://www.samizdata.net/2013/04/so-what-is-a-person-to-do-when-another-wishes-to-make-them-do-the-right-thing-at-gunpoint/
A blog for people with a critically rational individualist perspectiveSat, 10 Dec 2016 04:27:35 +0000hourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7By: Paul Markshttps://www.samizdata.net/2013/04/so-what-is-a-person-to-do-when-another-wishes-to-make-them-do-the-right-thing-at-gunpoint/#comment-334442
Thu, 25 Apr 2013 07:23:58 +0000http://www.samizdata.net/?p=18272#comment-334442By the way the bit about “being a libertarian because it would lead to the greatest good of the greatest number”.

There ARE utilitarian libertarians and I have no problem with them – although I am not one myself.

That is why I formally asked Mr Bowman (even though I suspected I already knew the answer) whether he came to the nonaggression principle via consequences (people being better off and so on). And he formally stated that he DID NOT come to the nonaggression principle – that he DID NOT support it.

So it is NOT a matter of comming to libertarianism by the route of consequences.

In the past the “libertarian left” (such as Kevin Carson) claimed to support “NAP” – and then did fancy footwork to justify X, Y, Z.

Today the new left openly express their contempt for “NAP” (unless someone takes up on their challenge – then, suddenly, they are children again who need someone to protect them). Perhaps by wanting to be “taken seriously” in the “intellectual world” this collapse is made inevitable.

Want the spawn of Plato to “take you seriously” – then you end up being like them.

None of that really comes from Mr Bowman’s head – it comes from the universities (and those they influence – such as the media). It comes from the ACADEMICS (the spawn of Plato) who have influenced him.

It is not one person – it is a legion of people.

That is why (Paul’s excuse for his own failure alert) people like us never really had a chance to save the West from social and economic bankruptcy (in reality if not in law) – we do not educate the young, the ACADEMICS educate the young.

And most academics are just like the people who influenced Mr Bowman.

And, by the way, I firmly believe that many of those academics start out with good intentions (and I firmly believe that Mr Bowman started out with good intentions).

If they were space monsters I would not be so upset. I am so upset because they are NOT space monsters – they are human beings, who are warped by the system (by having to speak and, in the end, think in certain ways).

“Do not make your face look like” (mother says) “because the wind may change and you will stuck like it”.

People who go into the education system (and the “intellectual” world generally) even with the good intention of changing things, tend to ape the langauge and so on of the people already in it.

And that is dangerious – incredibly danagerious.

If the only way you can get (for example) an academic job, is to talk (and write and…) like an academic – then it is not worth it, it really is not.

‘Sam Bowman of the Adam Smith Institute suggested that the standard libertarian approach to presenting our ideas appealed only to ourselves. If we wanted to win hearts and minds, we needed to reason from public benefit – even (shock, horror!) “social justice”, in order to justify ourselves. He had no personal problem with this, as he was a libertarian only because he believed it would lead to the greater good of the greatest number and would benefit the poor.‘

Given this, I join those who disapprove strongly of Mr. Bowman’s views.

So, Mr. de Havilland, a disabled person shouldn’t pull a gun on someone to force that someone to save the life of a drowning baby. Fair enough. May said disabled person pull a gun on someone else to keep the someone else from harming said disabled person?

Materially different things. The disabled person of course has the right to defend themselves.

]]>By: Paul Markshttps://www.samizdata.net/2013/04/so-what-is-a-person-to-do-when-another-wishes-to-make-them-do-the-right-thing-at-gunpoint/#comment-334005
Wed, 24 Apr 2013 10:57:46 +0000http://www.samizdata.net/?p=18272#comment-334005Person of Choler – of course disabled people should be allowed to defend themselves (by any means they need to use). That is a “no brainer” – Perry does not have to say so.

As for the baby in the lake – if the person decides to threaten MURDER to save the baby should he or she not ACCEPT THE PUNISHMENT FOR DOING SO?

Should they not (if they really care so much) turn themselves in for punishment?

After all the baby will still be safe – if the baby is who they really care about (rather than pleasure of giving orders whilst pointing a gun and threatening murder being what they really care about).

Seerak.

It was not “just” Ayn Rand that Mr S. Bowman attacked – his other hate figure (who he called a racist and a sexist – in his Frankfurt School P.C. tapdance later in the talk) was Murray Rothbard – who broke with Ayn Rand.

I point this out as a I recently had a e.mail (from a third party) telling me that Mr Bowman must be a libertarian as he admired Murray Rothbard so much.

Actually, as those who were at the talk (which I profoundly wish I had NOT been) know, Mr Bowman admires Rothbard’s WRITING STYLE – he hates his CONCLUSIONS.

Not Rothbard’s 1960s political conclusions (on the contrary Mr Bowman said that “we libertarians” [sic] should ally with the “radical left” – a position which Rothbard repented of), but his basic philosophical position – the non aggression principle, i.e. the traditional view of justice (to-each-their-own) itself.

“Morality ends where a gun begins” – if that gun is pointing at an unarmed person who has committed (and intends) no crime, so that the person pointing the firearm can give orders (orders backed by the threat of murder).

Ayn Rand fled from the forces of Social Justice (i.e. those opposed to the traditional principle of justice to-each-their-own and in favour of the enemy principle of Social Justice i.e. to-each-what-the-rulers-believe-they-should-have).

Yet Ayn Rand found the forces of evil (the forces of Social Justice) growing even in the United States – especially among the intellectuals influenced by the ideas in the UNIVERSITIES (the academics – the spawn of Plato).

Ludwig Von Mises could not get a paid academic position either in Vienna or the United States, ending up dependent on the voluntary aid (the benevolence) of admirers – just as Murray Rothbard ended up.

I found it interesting that all the people Mr Bowman praised in his hour long talk (a talk that still pains me even so long afterwards) were academics – and not academics supported by the benevolence of outsiders, but regular members of the “guild” (for want of a better word).

And apart from Randian ethical egoists like myself, nobody notices the simple logic here: what starts with the concept of “duty” quickly leads to people seriously proposing using a gun to forcibly override someone else’s choice.

“Morality ends where a gun begins”, Rand said. The truth of it can hardly be any more stark.

]]>By: Charliehttps://www.samizdata.net/2013/04/so-what-is-a-person-to-do-when-another-wishes-to-make-them-do-the-right-thing-at-gunpoint/#comment-333832
Wed, 24 Apr 2013 03:36:41 +0000http://www.samizdata.net/?p=18272#comment-333832+1. We have conceiled carry here too, and anybody that points a gun at me will soon be approaching room temperature.
]]>By: Person of Cholerhttps://www.samizdata.net/2013/04/so-what-is-a-person-to-do-when-another-wishes-to-make-them-do-the-right-thing-at-gunpoint/#comment-333831
Wed, 24 Apr 2013 03:36:09 +0000http://www.samizdata.net/?p=18272#comment-333831So, Mr. de Havilland, a disabled person shouldn’t pull a gun on someone to force that someone to save the life of a drowning baby. Fair enough. May said disabled person pull a gun on someone else to keep the someone else from harming said disabled person?

Still, I repeat, techology (the survival of the baby outside the woman) may make the whole issue moot.

]]>By: Alisahttps://www.samizdata.net/2013/04/so-what-is-a-person-to-do-when-another-wishes-to-make-them-do-the-right-thing-at-gunpoint/#comment-333526
Tue, 23 Apr 2013 07:45:38 +0000http://www.samizdata.net/?p=18272#comment-333526Or, whoever is behind that tweet may be staging a straw-man diversion, and Mr. Bowman may not be any more ‘pro-life’ than any average Progressive. I guess the jury is out on that, for the time being.
]]>By: Paul Markshttps://www.samizdata.net/2013/04/so-what-is-a-person-to-do-when-another-wishes-to-make-them-do-the-right-thing-at-gunpoint/#comment-333383
Mon, 22 Apr 2013 23:46:33 +0000http://www.samizdata.net/?p=18272#comment-333383On that twitter account Mr Ed.

One “tweet” attacks the Guardian newspaper (at least I think it does) for attacking Pro Life people.

So Mr Bowman may actually be Pro Life.

The world is a complicated place – he may not take the 100% P.C. line (with even the Frankfurt School talk about sexism and racism and…..) that he did in that talk.